A successful business website relies on having all the ingredients in the right place at the right time. This includes having your own...

unique domain name

website hosting

domain linked email addresses

website optimised for the major search engines like Google

Domain Name

Arguably the most important factor for a business website is to purchase your own uniquedomain name. It indicates that you are sincere about your business. It gives your business a presence. And it indicates a degree of permanence as well !

These days it doesn't really matter what yourdomain nameis, but the closer it is to your business name, products or trading identity, so much the better.

But as a rule of thumb, shorter easy to rememberdomain namesare better than long ones. One or two words incorporated into the name are better than multiple words.

And whilst mult-worded hyphenated names were very beneficial a few years ago, they are best avoided. But that said, if a suitable multi-wordeddomain nameis ideal for your requirements, go for it !

Website Hosting

Before you will be able to use your Domain Name to use email and build a website, it must be permanently located on an internet linked server. This is called Hosting, Web Hosting or Website Hosting, depending on your preference. Unless you are planning to operate your own internet linked server, most business users rent one of the following hosting solutions from a commercial hosting company.

Shared Web Hosting

Shared hosting tends to be the cheapest and most economical solution for many start-up businesses, or small businesses with a limited budget. On the positive side, they tend to be fairly easy to set up although some technical expertise is required. If you don't have the relevant skills yourself, then your web designer may be able to deal with this for you.

Virtual Private Server - VPS

If you are serious about your business and want to present a professional face to the internet world, then a Virtual Private Server is highly recommended.

Whilst more expensive than shared hosting, most VPS packages are equipped with all the latest high-end hosting features, enabling you to build a website that can compete with the best at all levels.

Email Addresses

Over the past 25 years or so, email has arguably turned into the most important communication tool for business. Owing to its instant mode of transition, it has virtually replaced business letters using conventional postal services.

And thanks to the ease with which it can handle attachments like PDFs, Word documents & images, there are virtually no limits to what it can do.

Unique Email Addresses

Once your web hosting has been activated, your web designer or IT specialist will be able to create unique email addresses using your domain name, enabling you to have individual addresses for each member of your team if required.

Sending Email is FREE - even in bulk!

Information can even be transmitted in bulk by email to thousands of
customers within a matter of minutes, ensuring that all of your clients
get the data at virtually the same time. And once you have paid for
the broadband connection, it is all sent completely free of charge.

Compared to the cost of preparing letters or getting advertising
pamphlets printed and paying postage to get them delivered, using email
as an alternative to conventional post is a no brainer.

Search Engines

A few years ago, a whole industry was involved in providing the almost mystical art ofSearch Engine Optimisation-SEO. By subjecting your website to their secretive skills, SEO gurus were allegedly able to whisk your website to the number one spot in search engine listings, no matter how many millions of other websites were competing for the same slot !

But as the search engines themselves became more sophisticated and started employing secret algorythms to ensure that SEO dark arts were not being used, the SEO industry started to fade.

Googlewas particularly prominent in this regard. These days they employ very sophisticated algorythms that have now virtually eliminated any advantage that SEO once provided. Now they tend to completely ignore all SEO elements and are more likely to punish a website using it. Websites are now rated on the content of each page, giving prominence to pages which actually reflect the search data requested.

Googleis now the most important search engine in the world, handling approximately 90% of all searches worldwide.